Hamilton confident of finding another level

Lewis Hamilton insists he still has work to do to extract the maximum from both himself and his Mercedes in his pursuit of a second world title.

Hamilton took the championship lead with his victory last time out at the Spanish Grand Prix, and holds the momentum over team-mate and title rival Nico Rosberg with four wins to one. Rosberg came within 0.6s of victory in Spain but Hamilton is convinced his preparations before every weekend are the key in helping him find gains in the areas he has been lacking.

"I think there's more to come from me and there's more to come from the car together," he said. "There's more that I can extract from the car and in myself there's a little bit more there. It's not just a case of going out there and doing it but it's your approach to the weekend, the steps you take from the moment you get out on the track, the data and information you bring back.

"Sometimes you do a lap and you think while you're in the lap, 'shoot, I've got to mention that', but by the time you've finished your run you've completely forgotten about that part but it turns out its important for the whole weekend. So it's really trying to make sure you've extracted all the data and taken all the right steps. We'll try and do another step this weekend and see how it goes."

Hamilton struggled to find the maximum from the car in Monaco last year, while Rosberg romped to victory, but he insists he will build on his experiences from 2013 to avoid a repeat this time around.

"Monaco has always been a track I've done well at, particularly before Formula One, and then when you get here it's different as the car has a big impact on it. Nico was very, very quick [at Monaco] last year and there's not a lot of team-mates I've allowed to beat me here so I'm hoping that this weekend I can turn up the pressure a bit and make it better."

But he is aware of the advantage he has from his Mercedes and how that changes the way he can approach the race weekend.

"It never comes easily, a lap here. I think there's different types of laps you can do. When I was at McLaren and had a car which wasn't the fastest if you're pushing beyond the limit the chances of crashing are higher, as opposed to a car where you don't have to go way beyond the limit to being in that window. It's a different position to be in because you can be smoother and more accurate and in actual fact sometimes it can be faster."

The International Rugby Board (IRB) have stripped Australia of the right to host a round of the World Sevens Series, scheduled for Brisbane on 16-17 February, after the Australian government's refusal to provide visas for the squad from Fiji